India’s northern state blackout affecting 360 million people is a testament as to why the “I” in BRIC needs a reliable supply of electricity above all else. Northern India has faced power outages this summer due to, among other reasons, a lack of fuel for power generation. In the short term, this has everything to do with keeping the lights on. In the longer term, the electricity-fuel issue has everything to do with the economic development of the Indian state and its people. In fueling its future, India is looking at neighboring Myanmar as one source for ensuring the lights don’t go out again.

Japan’s energy trade with Russia is comparatively low. Sub-par trade volumes between these two Pacific nations are part of the legacy of Japan’s relationship with the Soviet Union in the post-World War II era punctuated by continuing friction over the disputed Kurile Islands, and among other things due to Japan’s domestic priority to stake out an energy future not solely reliant on resource imports for power generation. However Alex Calvo’s article is as much about the past as it is about the future of Russia, Japan and the Pacific. The post-Fukushima era is changing Japan’s energy mix and may prove to pave the way for the emergence of Russia as a more powerful Pacific state.

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